might have a chance to have them fixed when I reached Courtrai, the
prison where I was to be taken. So I asked the doctor if it would be
possible for me to have this work done there, but he very curtly told
me that though there were several dentists at Courtrai, they were
busy enough fixing the teeth of their own men without bothering about
mine. He also added that I would not have to worry about my teeth;
that I wouldn't be getting so much food that they would be put out of
commission by working overtime. I wanted to tell him that from the way
things looked he would not be wearing his out very soon, either.
My condition improved during the next two days and on the fourth day of
my captivity I was well enough to write a brief message to my squadron
reporting that I was a prisoner of war and "feeling fine," although,
as a matter of fact, I was never so depressed in my life. I realized,
however, that if the message reached my comrades, it would be relayed
to my mother in Momence, Illinois, and I did not want to worry her more
than was absolutely necessary. It was enough for her to know that I was
a prisoner. She did not have to know that I was wounded.
I had hopes that my message would be carried over the lines and dropped
by one of the German flying officers. That is a courtesy which is
usually practised on both sides. I recalled how patiently we had waited
in our aerodrome for news of our men who had failed to return, and I
could picture my squadron speculating on my fate.
That is one of the saddest things connected with service in the R. F.
C. You don't care much what happens to you, but the constant casualties
among your friends is very depressing.
You go out with your "flight" and get into a muss. You get scattered and
when your formation is broken up you finally wing your way home alone.
Perhaps you are the first to land. Soon another machine shows in the
sky, then another, and you patiently wait for the rest to appear.
Within an hour, perhaps, all have shown up save one, and you begin to
speculate and wonder what has happened to him.
Has he lost his way? Has he landed at some other aerodrome? Did the Huns
get him?
When darkness comes you realize that, at any rate, he won't be back
that night, and you hope for a telephone-call from him telling of his
whereabouts.
If the night passes without sign or word from him he is reported as
missing, and then you watch for his casualty to appear in the war-office
lists.
One day, perhaps a month later, a message is dropped over the line by
the German Flying Corps with a list of pilots captured or killed by the
Huns, and then, for the first time, you know definitely why it was your
comrade failed to return the day he last went over the line with his
squadron.
I was still musing over this melancholy phase of the scout's life when
an orderly told me there was a beautiful battle going on in the air, and
he volunteered to help me outside the hospital that I might witness it,
and I readily accepted his assistance.
That afternoon I saw one of the gamest fights I ever expect to witness.
There were six of our machines against perhaps sixteen Huns. From the
type of the British machines I knew that they might possibly be from my
own aerodrome. Two of our machines had been apparently picked out by six
of the Huns and were bearing the brunt of the fight. The contest seemed
to me to be so unequal that victory for our men was hardly to be thought
of, and yet at one time they so completely outmaneuvered the Huns that
I thought their superior skill might save the day for them, despite the
fact that they were so hopelessly outnumbered. One thing I was sure of:
they would never give in.
Of course it would have been a comparatively simple matter for our men,
when they saw how things were going against them, to have turned their
noses down, landed behind the German lines, and given themselves up as
prisoners, but that is not the way of the R. F. C.
A battle of this kind seldom lasts many minutes, although every second
seems like an hour to those who participate in it and even onlookers
suffer more thrills in the course of the struggle than they would
ordinarily experience in a lifetime. It is apparent even to a novice
that the loser's fate is death.
Of course the Germans around the hospital were all watching and rooting
for their comrades, but the English, too, had one sympathizer in that
group who made no effort to stifle his admiration for the bravery his
comrades were displaying.
The end came suddenly. Four machines crashed to earth almost
simultaneously. It was an even break--two of theirs and two of ours. The
others apparently returned to their respective lines.
The wound in my mouth was bothering me considerably, but by means of a
pencil and paper I requested one of the German officers to find out for
me who the English officers were who had been shot down.
A little later he returned and handed me a photograph taken from the
body of one of the victims. It was a picture of Paul Raney, of Toronto,
and myself, taken together! Poor Raney! He was the best friend I had and
one of the best and gamest men who ever fought in France!
It was he, I learned long after, who, when I was reported missing, had
checked over all my belongings and sent them back to England with a
signed memorandum--which is now in my possession. Poor fellow, he little
realized then that but a day or two later he would be engaged in his
last heroic battle, with me a helpless onlooker!
The same German officer who brought me the photograph also drew a map
for me of the exact spot where Raney was buried in Flanders. I guarded
it carefully all through my subsequent adventures and finally turned it
over to his father and mother when I visited them in Toronto to perform
the hardest and saddest duty I have ever been called upon to execute--to
confirm to them in person the tidings of poor Paul's death.
The other British pilot who fell was also from my squadron and a man I
knew well--Lieutenant Keith, of Australia. I had given him a picture of
myself only a few hours before I started on my own disastrous flight.
He was one of the star pilots of our squadron and had been in many a
desperate battle before, but this time the odds were too great for
him. He put up a wonderful fight and he gave as much as he took.
[Illustration: LIEUT. PAUL H. RANEY OF TORONTO AND LIEUT. PAT O'BRIEN
(Raney was killed in action before the eyes of O'Brien, who was a
prisoner of war. This picture, found on the body of Raney when he fell
behind the German lines, was handed to O'Brien to identify the victim.)]
The next two days passed without incident and I was then taken to the
Intelligence Department of the German Flying Corps, which was located
about an hour from the hospital. There I was kept two days, during which
time they put a thousand and one questions to me. While I was there I
turned over to them the message I had written in the hospital and asked
them to have one of their fliers drop it on our side of the line.
They asked me where I would like it dropped, thinking perhaps I would
give my aerodrome away, but when I smiled and shook my head they did not
insist upon an answer.
"I'll drop it over ----," declared one of them, naming my aerodrome,
which revealed to me that their flying corps is as efficient as other
branches of the service in the matter of obtaining valuable information.
And right here I want to say that the more I came to know of the enemy
the more keenly I realized what a difficult task we're going to have
to lick him. In all my subsequent experience the fact that there is a
heap of fight left in the Huns still was thoroughly brought home to me.
We shall win the war eventually, if we don't slow up too soon in the
mistaken idea that the Huns are ready to lie down.
The flying officers who questioned me were extremely anxious to find out
all they could about the part America is going to play in the war, but
they evidently came to the conclusion that America hadn't taken me very
deeply into her confidence, judging from the information they got, or
failed to get, from me.
At any rate, they gave me up as a bad job and I was ordered to the
officers' prison at Courtrai, Belgium.
V
THE PRISON-CAMP AT COURTRAI
From the Intelligence Department I was conveyed to the officers'
prison-camp at Courtrai in an automobile. It was about an hour's ride.
My escort was one of the most famous flyers in the world, barring none.
He was later killed in action, but I was told by an English airman who
witnessed his last combat that he fought a game battle and died a hero's
death.
The prison, which had evidently been a civil prison of some kind before
the war, was located right in the heart of Courtrai. The first building
we approached was large, and in front of the archway, which formed the
main entrance, was a sentry box. Here we were challenged by the sentry,
who knocked on the door; the guard turned the key in the lock and I was
admitted. We passed through the archway and directly into a courtyard,
on which faced all of the prison buildings, the windows, of course,
being heavily barred.
After I had given my pedigree--my name, age, address, etc.--I was shown
to a cell with bars on the windows overlooking this courtyard. I was
promptly told that at night we were to occupy these rooms, but I had
already surveyed the surroundings, taken account of the number of guards
and the locked door outside, and concluded that my chances of getting
away from some other place could be no worse than in that particular
cell.
As I had no hat, my helmet being the only thing I wore over the lines,
I was compelled either to go bareheaded or wear the red cap of the
Bavarian whom I had shot down on that memorable day. It can be imagined
how I looked attired in a British uniform and a bright red cap. Wherever
I was taken, my outfit aroused considerable curiosity among the Belgians
and German soldiers.
When I arrived at prison that day I still wore this cap, and as I was
taken into the courtyard, my overcoat covering my uniform, all that the
British officers who happened to be sunning themselves in the courtyard
could see was the red cap. They afterward told me they wondered who the
"big Hun" was with the bandage on his mouth. This cap I managed to keep
with me, but was never allowed to wear it on the walks we took. I either
went bareheaded or borrowed a cap from some other prisoner.
At certain hours each day the prisoners were allowed to mingle in the
courtyard, and on the first occasion of this kind I found that there
were eleven officers imprisoned there besides myself.
They had here interpreters who could speak all languages. One of them
was a mere boy who had been born in Jersey City, New Jersey, and had
spent all his life in America until the beginning of 1914. Then he moved
with his folks to Germany, and when he became of military age the Huns
forced him into the army. I think if the truth were known he would much
rather have been fighting for America than against her.
I found that most of the prisoners remained at Courtrai only two or
three days. From there they were invariably taken to prisons in the
interior of Germany.
Whether it was because I was an American or because I was a flier, I
don't know, but this rule was not followed in my case. I remained there
two weeks.
During that period, Courtrai was constantly bombed by our airmen.
Not a single day or night passed without one or more air raids. In
the two weeks I was there I counted twenty-one of them. The town
suffered a great deal of damage. Evidently our people were aware
that the Germans had a lot of troops concentrated in this town, and,
besides, the headquarters staff was stationed there. The Kaiser himself
visited Courtrai while I was in the prison, I was told by one of the
interpreters, but he didn't call on me and, for obvious reasons, I
couldn't call on him.
The courtyard was not a very popular place during air raids. Several
times when our airmen raided that section in the daytime I went out
and watched the machines and the shrapnel bursting all around; but the
Germans did not crowd out there, for their own anti-aircraft guns were
hammering away to keep our planes as high in the sky as possible, and
shells were likely to fall in the prison yard any moment. Of course, I
watched these battles at my own risk.
Many nights from my prison window I watched with peculiar interest the
air raids carried on, and it was a wonderful sight with the German
searchlights playing on the sky, the "flaming onions" fired high and the
burst of the anti-aircraft guns, but rather an uncomfortable sensation
when I realized that perhaps the very next minute a bomb might be
dropped on the building in which I was a prisoner. But perhaps all of
this was better than no excitement at all, for prison life soon became
very monotonous.
One of the hardest things I had to endure throughout the two weeks I
spent there was the sight of the Hun machines flying over Courtrai,
knowing that perhaps I never would have another chance to fly, and I
used to sit by the hour watching the German machines maneuvering over
the prison, as they had an aerodrome not far away, and every afternoon
the students--I took them for students because their flying was very
poor--appeared over the town.
One certain Hun seemed to find particular satisfaction in flying right
down over the prison nightly, for my special discomfort and benefit it
seemed, as if he knew an airman imprisoned there was vainly longing to
try his wings again over their lines. But I used to console myself by
saying, "Never mind, old boy; there was never a bird whose wings could
not be clipped if they got him just right, and your turn will come some
day."
One night there was an exceptionally heavy air raid going on. A number
of German officers came into my room, and they all seemed very much
frightened. I jokingly remarked that it would be fine if our airmen hit
the old prison--the percentage would be very satisfactory--one English
officer and about ten German ones. They didn't seem to appreciate the
joke, however, and, indeed, they were apparently too much alarmed at
what was going on overhead to laugh even at their own jokes. Although
these night raids seemed to take all the starch out of the Germans while
they were going on, the officers were usually as brave as lions the
next day and spoke contemptuously of the raid of the night before.
I saw thousands of soldiers in Courtrai, and although they did not
impress me as having very good or abundant food, they were fairly well
clothed. I do not mean to imply that conditions pointed to an early end
of the war. On the contrary, from what I was able to observe on that
point, unless the Huns have an absolute crop failure, they can, in my
opinion, go on for years! The idea of our being able to win the war by
starving them out strikes me as ridiculous. This is a war that must be
won by _fighting_, and the sooner we realize that fact the sooner it
will be over.
Rising-hour in the prison was seven o'clock. Breakfast came at eight.
This consisted of a cup of coffee and nothing else. If the prisoner had
the foresight to save some bread from the previous day, he had bread for
breakfast also, but that never happened in my case. Sometimes we had
two cups of coffee--that is, near-coffee. It was really chicory or some
cereal preparation. We had no milk or sugar.
For lunch they gave us boiled sugar-beets or some other vegetable,
and once in a while some kind of pickled meat, but that happened very
seldom. We also received a third of a loaf of bread--war-bread. This
war-bread was as heavy as a brick, black, and sour. It was supposed to
last us from noon one day to noon the next. Except for some soup, this
was the whole lunch menu.
Dinner came at 5.30 P.M., when we sometimes had a little jam made out
of sugar-beets, and a preparation called tea which you had to shake
vigorously or it settled in the bottom of the cup and then about all
you had was hot water. This "tea" was a sad blow to the Englishmen. If
it hadn't been called tea, they wouldn't have felt so badly about it,
perhaps, but it was adding insult to injury to call that stuff "tea"
which, with them, is almost a national institution.
Sometimes with this meal they gave us butter instead of jam, and once in
a while we had some kind of canned meat.
This comprised the usual run of eatables for the day--I can eat more
than that for breakfast! In the days that were to come, however, I was
to fare considerably worse.
[Illustration: MAILING-CARD SENT BY GERMAN GOVERNMENT TO PAT O'BRIEN'S
SISTER, MRS. CLARA CLEGG OF MOMENCE, ILLINOIS]
[Illustration: OBVERSE SIDE OF CARD SHOWN ABOVE]
We were allowed to send out and buy a few things, but as most of the
prisoners were without funds, this was but an empty privilege. Once I
took advantage of the privilege to send my shoes to a Belgian shoemaker
to be half-soled. They charged me twenty marks--five dollars!
Once in a while a Belgian Ladies' Relief Society visited the prison
and brought us handkerchiefs, American soap--which sells at about one
dollar and fifty cents a bar in Belgium--tooth-brushes, and other
little articles, all of which were American-made, but whether they were
supplied by the American Relief Committee or not I don't know. At any
rate, these gifts were mighty useful and were very much appreciated.
One day I offered a button off my uniform to one of these Belgian ladies
as a souvenir, but a German guard saw me and I was never allowed to go
near the visitors afterward.
The sanitary conditions in this prison-camp were excellent as a general
proposition. One night, however, I discovered that I had been captured
by "cooties."
This was a novel experience to me and one that I would have been very
willing to have missed, because in the Flying Corps our aerodromes are
a number of miles back of the lines and we have good billets, and our
acquaintance with such things as "cooties" and other unwelcome visitors
is very limited.
When I discovered my condition I made a holler and roused the guard, and
right then I got another example of German efficiency.
This guard seemed to be even more perturbed about my complaint than I
was myself, evidently fearing that he would be blamed for my condition.
The commandant was summoned, and I could see that he was very angry.
Some one undoubtedly got a severe reprimand for it.
I was taken out of my cell by a guard with a rifle and conducted about a
quarter of a mile from the prison to an old factory building which had
been converted into an elaborate fumigating plant. There I was given a
pickle bath in some kind of solution, and while I was absorbing it my
clothes, bedclothes, and whatever else had been in my cell were being
put through another fumigating process.
While I was waiting for my things to dry--it took, perhaps, half an
hour--I had a chance to observe about one hundred other victims of
"cooties"--German soldiers who had become infested in the trenches. We
were all nude, of course, but apparently it was not difficult for them
to recognize me as a foreigner even without my uniform on, for none of
them made any attempt to talk to me, although they all were very busy
talking _about_ me. I could not understand what they were saying, but I
know I was the butt of most of their jokes, and they made no effort to
conceal the fact that I was the subject of their conversation.
When I got back to my cell I found that it had been thoroughly
fumigated, and from that time on I had no further trouble with "cooties"
or other visitors of the same kind.
As we were not allowed to write anything but prison cards, writing
was out of the question; and as we had no reading-matter to speak
of, reading was nil. We had nothing to do to pass away the time, so
consequently cards became our only diversion, for we did, fortunately,
have some of those.
There wasn't very much money, as a rule, in circulation, and I think for
once in my life I held most of that, not due to any particular ability
on my part in the game, but I happened to have several hundred francs in
my pockets when shot down. But we held a lottery there once a day, and I
don't believe there was ever another lottery held that was watched with
quite such intense interest as that. The drawing was always held the day
before the prize was to be awarded, so we always knew the day before who
was the lucky man. There was as much speculation as to who would win
the prize as if it had been the finest treasure in the world. The great
prize was one-third of a loaf of bread.
Through some arrangement which I never quite figured out, it happened
that among the eight or ten officers who were there with me there was
always one-third of a loaf of bread over. There was just one way of
getting that bread, and that was to draw lots. Consequently that was
what started the lottery. I believe if a man had ever been inclined to
cheat he would have been sorely tempted in this instance, but the game
was played absolutely square, and if a man had been caught cheating, the
chances are that he would have been shunned by the rest of the officers
as long as he was in prison. I was fortunate enough to win the prize
twice.
One man--I think he was the smallest eater in the camp--won it on three
successive days, but it was well for him that his luck deserted him on
the fourth day, for he probably would have been handled rather roughly
by the rest of the crowd, who were growing suspicious. But we handled
the drawing ourselves and knew there was nothing crooked about it, so he
was spared.
We were allowed to buy pears, and, being small and very hard, they were
used as the stakes in many a game. But the interest in these little
games was as keen as if the stakes had been piles of money instead of
two or three half-starved pears. No man was ever so reckless, however,
in all the betting, as to wager his own rations.
By the most scheming and sacrificing I ever did in my life I managed to
hoard two pieces of bread (grudgingly spared at the time from my daily
rations), but I was preparing for the day when I should escape--if I
ever should. It was not a sacrifice easily made, either, but instead of
eating bread I ate pears until I finally got one piece of bread ahead;
and when I could force myself to stick to the pear diet again I saved
the other piece from that day's allowance, and in days to come I had
cause to credit myself fully for the foresight.
Whenever a new prisoner came in and his German hosts had satisfied
themselves as to his life history and taken down all the details--that
is, all he would give them--he was immediately surrounded by his
fellow-prisoners, who were eager for any bit of news or information he
could possibly give them, and as a rule he was glad to tell us because,
if he had been in the hands of the Huns for any length of time, he had
seen very few English officers.
The conditions of this prison were bad enough when a man was in normally
good health, but it was barbarous to subject a wounded soldier to the
hardships and discomforts of the place. However, this was the fate of
a poor private we discovered there one day in terrific pain, suffering
from shrapnel in his stomach and back. All of us officers asked to have
him sent to a hospital, but the doctors curtly refused, saying it was
against orders. So the poor creature went on suffering from day to day
and was still there when I left, another victim of German cruelty.
At one time in this prison-camp there were a French marine, a French
flying officer, and two Belgian soldiers, and of the United Kingdom
one from Canada, two from England, three from Ireland, a couple from
Scotland, one from Wales, a man from South Africa, one from Algeria,
and a New-Zealander, the last being from my own squadron, a man whom
I thought had been killed, and he was equally surprised, when brought
into the prison, to find me there. In addition there were a Chinaman and
myself from the U. S. A.